Babies born in the world’s poorest countries, most of them in Africa, still face “alarming” risks of death that can be 50 times as high as those in the richest countries, according to a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) report released Tuesday.
Of the 10 highest-risk countries, eight are in sub-Saharan Africa, countries where “pregnant women are much less likely to receive assistance,” due to poverty, conflict or weak institutions, according to the report.
Those eight countries are the Central African Republic (a one in 24 chance of death);
Somalia, Lesotho, Guinea-Bissau and South Sudan (all with a one in 26 chance); Cote d’Ivoire (one in 27) and Mali and Chad (both with a one in 28 chance).
According to UNICEF’s Executive Director, Henrietta Fore, “While we have more than halved the number of deaths among children under the age of five in the last quarter century, we have not made similar progress in ending deaths among children less than one-month-old.
Given that the majority of these deaths are preventable, clearly, we are failing the world’s poorest babies.
Read the story here:
https://lnkd.in/ejXinH7
No comments:
Post a Comment